Karina Vazirova FemTech Labs - The Next Trillion Dollar Market

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. Over the past few months, I've been taking this new supplement called HRV Plus by mode and method. Over that time, I've experienced significant improvement in sleep quality, faster recovery, and an objective uptick in my average HRV. About two to three points on average. That's a big deal. HRV Plus is the world's first expert-curated, carefully sourced blend of all natural micronutrients to optimize recovery, increase performance, and boost heart rate variability. Formulated by some of the world's leading experts, HRV Plus combines their proprietary hemp extract with omega-3 oil, magnesium, and curcumin extract to target inflammation, improve sleep, and supercharge our endocannabinoid system. I encourage you to give it a shot. Go to modemethod.com and enter discount code ERIC15. That's modemodemethod.com and enter code ERIC15 for 15% off. Go get it. All right, we are live. Karina Vasilova, welcome to the future of fitness.

Hi, thanks for having me. This is uh really great to be here.

I'm looking forward to this. This is, you know, femtech is a, well, number one, your background's fascinating, and we'll get into that in a minute. Uh, but femtech is something that is it seems to be a buzzword within the industry over the last two years, two to three years, and you know, you're firmly planted in the middle of that. So I'm I'm looking forward to learning more about femtech and and the limited knowledge I have about it and uh what that really means for the industry and why it's such an exciting space. So let's let's start with this because I know you have an interesting background, Karina. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to be uh a co-founder and CEO of FemTech Labs?

Sure. Um I have a bit of a uh strange background, I guess. Um I uh grew up in Russia and I played chess professionally, competitively from age of five. And I think it's it's impossible for me to talk about my view on the world and and everything I do without mentioning this because chess has shaped so much of how I view the world, how I view the world of business, how I make decisions, how I think about trends. Um, it's one of the most formative parts of my background. Um so I played uh chess competitively internationally from age of five. I got recruited right out of high school to um play in the US, in uh Texas, out of all places. I got a scholarship to play for um one of the best universities um uh with the best uh chess team in the world, and um moved to Texas at the age of 16. Um so that was really interesting. Texas is a very uh interesting culture shock um to move to from from Russia. Um I played for the collegiate team in in UT, Dallas, and um pretty much right out of university, I quit chess, moved into law, which seemed like a very natural progression from chess to continue exercising the logic muscles and um passed the bar in New York and uh practiced law for maybe a hot second, um dabbled into different things, you know, from commercial law uh to corporate and um uh from pseudocal litigation actually to civil rights, personal injury. I've tried everything, I loved it. Um I think that law school really teached uh how to not just think logically, but how to also communicate with impact. So I think law school is really good, really good experience for anyone that wants to be able to communicate their story and to to influence with the spoken or the written words. I don't practice law anymore. Um, although my my partner at home would would would say differently. I do still like uh constructing a good argument. Um yeah, pretty much right out of out of law school, I got into technology. So uh found my my big passion number one and um joined a legal technology startup in New York and dove into building digital products using AI. And you know, back my days playing chess and studying chess and training chess, I learned how much technology can be an assist and how much technology can really make a difference in you getting better at something. Um so tech made a lot of sense for me. And um, I worked at this startup for a couple of years building products, it scaled globally. I got to participate in the global expansion in Australia and London. So I got to learn not just how to build digital products, but also how to take them to market, how to sell, how to talk to customers, how to how to really figure out not just how to build a product, but also how to take it to market um in the right and most effective way. Um and then fast forward a couple of years, ended up in London and immediately, this was about six years ago, and as soon as I got to London, you know, London was was this booming place of fintech. And um I got swept into that world immediately, um, into the world of startups, into the world of you know, happy hours at Google Campus. Um it was really a I think London was a in terms of London tech scene, you know, six to ten years ago, it's a very cool, cool space to be in. And I got exposed to venture, um, the world of venture capital, the world of kind of traditional startups, and um joined a fintech startup as a head of product. And we raised um Series A with Index Ventures, which is one of the leading venture capital firms in the world. Again, amazing experience um learning how to operate and navigate the venture capital space and build and scale a product. And yeah, after that I set up a product development agency. I you know was combining my passion for um artificial intelligence, building deep technology with um creating user interfaces that make sense and that are actually useful and worked in the energy space uh for a little bit um and just wasn't really I felt like I was doing something that was really intellectually stimulating, but wasn't wasn't really kind of uh uh touching my heart um and didn't feel like didn't feel like it was meaningful enough. Um and I was in this um in this desperate search of where to apply everything that I'd learned um from my years in technology and business. And I um I think I discovered FemTech, um, this the sector. I think I either went to a conference or I read about it. I can't now point to the exact moment when I discovered um femtech, but I I remember reading about it and just having this. Um I think I've said this to you before in our previous conversations, kind of having like a full-body response. Uh, I think just being a woman and also being someone that has been in the technology space for for many years, I would say I've been I've been using tech at a at a different level from age of five, uh, in terms of appreciating what technology can do, um, what it can offer in terms of progress, and just realizing that it it makes so much sense. Um, and and that most importantly, this this space, uh, the space of female technology is where I want to be, and it's what I want to um dedicate my creative energy to, what I want to dedicate my brain power to, and I just immediately had this realization I I have to do this, I have to build something in in femtech, and I have to participate in in accelerating the space and and and helping it grow. So that's I guess um a quick summary of everything that has led me to to femtech and and starting femtech lab.

Yeah, that's great. And and you certainly found yourself right in the middle of of the femtech uh, I guess, movement uh for lack of better term. So, you know, I want to circle back on a couple of those things later on in the interview about your background because uh there's some interesting questions I have for you. But let's get in for people who are listening who may not be familiar with what FemTech is, can you maybe give us a working definition so that we can dive a little bit deeper into it?

Sure, yeah. Femtech is a newly emerged technology sector and it includes products, services, software, diagnostics, medtech, biotech, basically any product that involves a technical element and that improves health, well-being, lives of women. So femtech is not so much about female founders, but it is about the addressable market being women. Um, in fact, we have amazing male founders as well in the space. So, just to I guess paint the picture, I'll give some examples. So, FemTech includes female specific health uh issues and conditions, so menstruation, fertility, contraception, um, period care, uh, menopause, hormone health, uh, gynecological health, pregnancy, maternal health. So, all of these conditions that are experienced by women, by half of the world population, are within the scope of the sector. But also, there are emerging health spaces that recognize that there are sex and gender differences in healthcare and wellness and mental health, you know, and and and products that are built maybe for things like um brain health or heart health or um immune health, mental health, and they recognize that women experience those conditions differently, and they are designed for the female body, for the female anatomy, for the female mind. And um it's it's becoming more and more um apparent now, and more and more research is coming out, and recognition in the public healthcare space is coming out, the female body is fundamentally different. And everything that, you know, especially in the fitness and wellness space, everything we read online about things like you know, hate exercise or intermittent fasting, or um, you know, how to eat or what to sort of deprive our bodies to for uh purposes of longevity, all of that for the most part, um, is not going to be accurate for the female anatomy. Uh and we're now getting to this place where where women are aware, more and more aware about their needs um you know not having been met for so many years, and are kind of rising to entrepreneurship and starting companies and um not just advocating for change but building solutions that create that change. And that's what the sector is all about. And it's been it's it's it's massive. I think from business and venture capital perspective, it's very hard to over oversell it or overestimate um because we're talking about half of the world population's needs. And it's been there's been reports that have uh measured the sector to be one trillion dollars to reach one trillion dollars in market size by 22. Which it it it's hard to even measure this because again, we're talking about half of the world's population, and what's crazy is that women have been excluded from clinical trials um until 1993. That's after I was born. So um it's if you think about the kind of the modern the modern medicine and science from inception has been designed on the basis of you know the male biology, and it so many needs um of the of of the of female biology haven't been met. And and now all of this awareness is coming up, and it's just this this field of opportunities in terms of entrepreneurships and building products and innovation most of all. And um, that's why I think it's even though FemTech is still quite early days, but it's just has incredible potential to be the I think the next big blue ocean, the next big thing in health tech at the very least.

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Sure, yeah. So uh Femtech Lab is an innovation platform focusing on women's health and wellness. So our our goal as an organization, our mission is to accelerate this wave of new products and to support the most disruptive, forward-thinking, cutting-edge founders and products in the market. Because Femtech is a relatively new space, it's still, you know, not all investors understand it, not all go-to-market channels are walked, so to speak. And our job as an organization is to really be the platform that facilitates and and and connects all the channels and and empowers this entire sector to grow and um to get as big as we think it can be. Um, fundamentally, one of our core products is a startup accelerator, which is the central focal point of everything we do. Um, twice a year. We run the accelerator program. We take 10 to 15 companies, um, and they all are building something for women, which is amazing in itself when they come together and they they join and they meet our mentors or they meet our investors and they meet each other for the most part and they compare notes and lessons learned. That's incredible. But um, that is fundamentally what we do, and what what our mission is is to improve lives of one billion women globally through supporting these entrepreneurs and these innovations and these products. Um, this KPI is ultimately very ambitious, but it does kind of help us to have a very meaningful North Star, and we can only get close to it if we truly enable startups to scale. Um, and so one aspect of what we do is is this platform, this this kind of commercial value that we add to startups and helping them grow and accelerate their businesses, but also what has happened kind of organically, I think, is that we've built a bit of a movement. And I think that's another aspect of the sector that it's hard to ignore and that makes it different from any other tech sector that I've ever been part of, and I've been part of a few, but it's the fact that it's it's fundamentally a social movement, and everything that happens in the space is is an is is is um is activism. So every startup, whether it's you know someone providing you know a menstrual care product for women in Pakistan, which we have two companies do that, it's incredible, or whether it's um a sexual wellness product for um LGBTQ community, every single company um in the space, every time they pitch to an investor, every time they um fight their way against um social media algorithms uh banning them, all of these things are are are fundamentally moving forward, not just the business um of femtech, but also um society and how we view um the female body and what um what things we can talk about and what aspects of the female health and wellness can come out from the shadows and and um and and be spoken about and and stop being something that women feel feel shame about. So I think what when we started, we had this incredible response, not just from entrepreneurs or investors, but from from everyone and and everyone wanting to join and participate and and become a mentor and be part of the ecosystem. And it almost feels like we've created a platform and we're just enabling everyone to participate in the sector. I don't know if that makes sense, but we're almost enabling everyone to contribute to the success of FemTech and to the success of the entrepreneurs or building products. And um, so I think on one hand, with this you know, commercial organization, but on the other hand, we've created a community and a bit of a movement and a sense of belonging for everyone that that wants to give to this space.

Yeah, and there's there's undeniably something strong about uh you know, like the newer age women-focused organizations. Like it's just uh, you know, and for whatever reason, it's not here for me to to talk about, but I look at like Women in Fitness Association, WEFA, um, blew up over the last three years, just absolutely astronomical growth, right? Um, FemTech Labs and what what you what you are all doing, I mean, just really, really fast growth. And when you when you say a number like, you know, a uh market value, total market value of a trillion dollars, like I'm not even sure how many zeros that is. That's just a lot, right? Like if I have to sit here and probably write it out and count all the zeros, um, that that's just a tremendous, tremendous. I mean, like I look at um like it's centered with uh the the wellness or the the low. Loyalty industry is a trillion dollar industry. And that's something that's been around forever, right? Like loyalty credit card points and things like that, not forever, but been around for a long time to grow. And you got MasterCard and Visas and all these American Express, like all these companies behind it. But Fentech is, you know, not quite as like, I guess, uh linear in its in its way. It's it's just picking up steam as it goes from different areas, like you said, that are kind of maybe in the dark but are now coming into the light. So it's it's really fascinating. Give me an example, if you can, Akrina, of like how if someone joined your accelerator, what does that experience look like for them? You know, from start to you know kind of fulfillment of of what you what you're doing with them.

Sure, yeah. So um we actually had our um recent cohort started on the 1st of September. So we have a um so we have a hub in London. So we're we're based in London, even though we're we're a global organization, we we work with founders from all over the world actually. Um, but we do have a physical hub in London. So everyone flies in for a week in the beginning of the program. And um we've had uh founders fly in from the US, from you know Mexico, from um Brazil, from India this time, uh, from all over Europe, from Africa. I mean, it's incredible. And so all these founders, charged on their passion to improve lives of women, fly in for a week. And um, we bring in investors that are based in London, we bring in scale-up founders, so successful entrepreneurs that have built businesses in the space, that have walked some of the roads and have picked up quite a lot of lessons learned. And we bring them over, they do workshops, they share their experiences with the entrepreneurs. And yeah, it it charges everyone for the next three months of the program. And um we really figure out together um what we can do as an organization to help these companies accelerate their growth and sort of reach their goals as much as possible in the upcoming three months of the accelerator program that we deliver. It could be getting their product to a certain point, it could be figuring out the most effective go-to-market channels. That one is my personal favorite, um, just because the sector is quite young and there's still so many interesting opportunities in terms of um, just to give you an example, we have in this cohort a founder of a company called um Postpartum Plan, and it's for new mothers. And she's exploring opportunities to not just go directly to mothers and sell B2C, but she's exploring B2B2C. So working with employers, for example, um, or finding interesting partners, but in particular in her case, working with employers. So it is kind of our job to see what we can do to get her as many introductions as possible to get her to market faster or to get her to figure out that market channel faster. And because we're so focused on women's health and wellness, we have a lot of partners and a lot of mentors that are um that can really provide interesting introductions and help founders with their go-to-market efforts. And basically for the next three months, now every everyone has flown back to their respective homes, and the majority of the program is virtual. Um, but now they're getting to meet. We have um over a hundred of experts, advisors, or mentors, and these are individuals from all walks of life, from product to marketing to fundraising to you know mindset and leadership that are incredibly passionate about the space and want to contribute and help the founders, and based on different founders and their needs and what what they're trying to achieve, um, they're meeting mentors and um getting advice and and and um yeah, again, like a kind of moving forward with their with their business goals. And then at the end of three months, we have demo day. So we have investors that we've been meeting for the last at least two years. So my co-founder Katya and I, I can't even count how many conversations we've had with investors about the space, and we've kind of grown an ecosystem of people that want to bet money on the sector, and we introduced the new pack of founders to those investors throughout, but really at on demo day at the end of the program. And when they graduate, they're you know hopefully concluding their fundraises, they're continuing to stay in touch, they're um exploring partnerships together, and they become part of a part of a pack. We have this WhatsApp group going on, and at the previous demo day, uh Katya and I were doing an introduction to investors that were attending, and we just had the WhatsApp chat buzzing with messages and selfies, and I don't know, it's just it it's so incredible to see people because ultimately it's not just that everyone is building a business, everyone is an impact entrepreneur, and when you combine impact entrepreneurs together, but also around the same topic, it creates this this absolutely contagious energy. Uh, and it attracts opportunities, it attracts people, it attracts um investors. And that's what we're really trying to create uh during the program is you know, real value that we add, like a lot of accelerators would in terms of mentorships and introductions and and all of that, but this this incredible experience and energy that gets created from solving the same thing together.

Oh, that's great. It sounds exciting to me. Like when I think about I put myself as you're telling a story as a founder of a company or you know, executive in a company, and going through this three-month period with this event at the end of this demo day and having to get all my stuff together and the energy and excitement and probably sleepless nights that goes along with it, just to get this moment of time, right, where you get your shot, right? You get your shot to talk to investors. I think it's really uh it sounds like a really fun and memorable experience for sure. You know, we uh I want to take kind of one layer deeper into FemTech too, because you had mentioned a lot of, I guess, subcategories for lack of a better term, within FemTech. Uh, you know, when you're starting to to describe what it is, you know, when we look at, and we'll just say we're in Q4 of 2022 as we talk about this now. Uh well over the last year, what have been some of the emerging trends that you've seen in femtech? Like what are maybe two or three of the the subcategories that are really starting to take off that you see?

Yeah, very interesting question. So um I would say that even in terms of kind of applications that we're we we've been receiving in the accelerator, um, which is I guess the the best place I can comment from, I would say that kind of the beginning of the year and uh and end of um 2021 was very much about um menstrual cycle care and wellness. And and I'm happy to un unpack that a little bit because it's quite a big, it's been a quite a big trend in the Femtech space. Um so cycle care and menstrual care is very much around this idea, not idea, this fact, that um you know women menstruate, and as women menstruate every month they go through through cycles. So we have four uh phases in the menstrual cycle, and there's been there's been this statistic out there that I read that the female um brain chemistry changes up to 25% throughout the month. And I feel like it's a very good, yeah, it's a very good woe kind of um kind of fact to share just to illustrate um how much fluctuation we're going through throughout the month. And it affects everything, so it affects um exercise, fitness. Um, so for example, there's this one amazing company called Wild AI that helps women that are athletes or that kind of take their fitness uh a bit more professionally, optimize their their fitness routine to their menstrual cycle. The US soccer team, women's soccer team, when they when they won the World Cup, they were training according to their menstrual cycles. So um that's a big thing that that's being affected. Um, productivity, um, and in general, kind of managing and staying healthy and staying well as a woman. I I don't think it's possible without being in tune with this menstrual cycle. And we've seen a lot of companies, especially end of 2021 and beginning of this year, apply to the program that were focusing on cycle care and and what you can do and what sort of products you can offer women to help them be more aware in their body and to kind of make them make the most and in and and do the right thing for their um anatomy throughout the cycle. There's also, and and this is a an ongoing, unresolved uh trend, so to speak, but unfortunately a condition, is that um there are um certain hormonal and gynecological conditions that a lot of women go through and are still not resolved, and we continue to see a lot of kind of entrepreneurs tapping into it. So, one example is um endometriosis. There's been some awareness about it in in the UK, but um basically one in ten women have this um condition called endometriosis, and um so just to again to to portray the picture, one in ten women is as many humans in the world as many that have diabetes. And um, you probably have heard about diabetes a lot, and I bet me saying endometriosis now would be the first time you heard that word, and probably majority of your audience um hadn't heard about it, even though it's it's very, very prominent. Yeah. And yet we hear about diabetes all the time, and and um I think the funding for endometriosis on all levels, I think it's something like 5% of all the funding that goes to diabetes, even though literally the same amount of people in the world uh go through both. Um so we've we've seen um a lot of founders trying to kind of um tackle this um big, very, very big issue in women's health. And um so that's that's been quite a bit of a trend. What we've also been seeing is there's just so much. Um I'm trying to kind of structure structure my thinking as I unpack this because there's there's so many trends in the space, everything is happening. Um but with a lot of um kind of with a lot of um issues in women's health, the fundamental, I guess, problem or the fundamental gap is data and science and research. And I guess what I've also personally learned entering into the space is that a lot of the conditions that are very prominent and and unresolved and and around uh which women's needs are not met are still not understood enough by the scientific community in order for entrepreneurs to start building products. So, for example, with endometriosis, which I kind of gave you an example of how how big it is as an issue, we still don't know um what causes it, we still don't know how to treat it, um, we still don't know anything about it, and yet um one out of ten women go through it. And it's it's there are some entrepreneurs that are trying to address it and to build kind of products that help women manage symptoms, but fundamentally, um what we're seeing as a trend is scientific research and more awareness of it, and therefore more more data and more funding going to scientific research. So potentially, as that unfolds, we're gonna see more startup founders take advantage of that research and actually build products and then take those products to market. But I guess, yeah, it's just um it it's it it's a it's a trend that's happening that that science is catching up with um with women's health and innovation that needs to take place. Yeah, I mean, I think it it is fundamentally that the modern science and healthcare medicine have been designed by men, and most of the uh people in leadership positions, again in science and healthcare, have been men. That is changing now, which I think is one of the main reasons why um women's health is becoming coming more to the front of the conversation and why more innovation is happening, is because more women are in positions of power, more women have money to invest, more women have um capacity to become entrepreneurs. So this sort of wave of female empowerment has definitely fueled the sector. Um and it is, you know, whether it's intentional or unintentional, but bias is a very real, very real thing that we all as humans are um subject to. Um and I think that the healthcare system um has definitely kind of been not been designed with the female body in mind, and it's been kind of created around standards of the male anatomy because it's been designed by men. And I think it it makes a lot of sense. I think if maybe if women were to design the healthcare system, it would be the other way around. I think it's just how our our mind works when we build things, we would build it's easier for us to to create something that we understand and um to create something that's um that is for us. So I think that's probably the main reason. Um I also think that I mean we can get quite philosophical here, but I don't know, there is just something about the a woman's body that I think that a woman's body has been subject to so much scrutiny and fascination, and it's just one of the most controversial things there is out there, it feels like, um, from the very sad events in the US around abortion to what's happening in Middle East and emerging markets and the experience that that girls have when they start to menstruate. You know, for example, in Pakistan, um, we've learned through some of our entrepreneurs that you know when girls first start getting their period in Pakistan, they have to sleep outside. There's just something about I think female body, yeah, female body and female sexuality that's been a topic of conversation and it's been something that for some reason as a as a society we don't treat in a very healthy way. And um, I think motherhood as well is recently, but in general, is a you know this controversial topic. Um, I think a lot of women feel that when they um get pregnant or when they have children, for some reason their their body is no longer theirs, or you know, the way that um culture treats them changes. So I don't know, I think there's also something there, and the shame that is wrapped around the female body um and the expectation and the um objectification of it in in social media all layers on. Um so I think there's yeah, a lot of a lot of shame around it. And I think that's also another reason why we don't talk about a lot of the things in in women's health. We don't talk about you know periods because um it's been sold to us as dirty. Um we don't talk about menopause, uh, this thing that happens to every single woman uh that affects every single woman's quality of life for up to 20 years. Menopause is female longevity. We talk about longevity so much right now in wellness and you know, it's so many podcasts out there, and um investors looking at longevity as the next big thing in health. And when we talk about longevity, we still don't talk about menopause. Because why? Because menopause is is viewed as this um uh kind of end of life or end of, I don't know, end of end of fertility for women. And it's it's it's it's for some reason surrounded with shame. And as a result, you have you know women showing up in the workplace and and getting to leadership positions at a certain age, and exactly at that age they're experiencing menopause. And and we don't talk about how that affects their chances of of getting um to the sea level or getting their seat at the table. We just talk about that you have to lean in, that you have to push, that you have to be empowered, that you have to be brave and confident, but we don't talk about all the things that we need to address in order for women to be confident, which is their basic need for health and wellness. Um I think I think there's just a lot about women's health that is taboo and shameful. And yeah, I think that's also why um, or it contributes to why our healthcare doesn't cater to it, because it's almost like in the dark, there's too much, too much shame, and shame always prevents progress and it prevents growth.

Yeah, it's an interesting take. And I I'm curious, I mean, you've obviously met with a healthy amount of support, right? You you're growing, there's a lot of buzz as you were alluding to. On on the other side of things, and this is you know, outside of challenges or pushback that you may get normally as an entrepreneur, like starting any kind of company, have you noticed anything unusual due to the fact that you are, you know, FemTech Labs? Like have you been, or are people been mostly with open arms?

Um mostly open arms. I think um, so Kaite and I as founders as well, we know that our like our our place in the world and our mission as an organization is to drive things forward in terms of progress and to offer solutions. And um we of course are are really aware about the bias in in the investment space around women's health and about female founders not getting statistically even close to the amount of funding that male founders get, but we're here to to break through. We're sort of here to be bold and and we're here to um yeah to to move things forward. So I think from the very beginning we've had a lot of yeah, positive and and really um encouraging response and people that wanted to support us, and then if someone doesn't want to support us, uh we don't really um dwell on it for too long. Um and and we move on and we find investors and we find partners that that will. And um there's there's truly enough of that um right now.

Awesome. So let's let's uh look forward now, 2023. You know, if you had to make some projections for if you and I are sitting here, maybe we'll be. It would be great to have you back in a year and kind of see what's going on. Um what do you, if we're talking a year from now, what what will have do you think will have happened within the world of femtech? What do you think are gonna be the big headlines?

Um I think that's I feel like I do this every year, but I really think in 2023, menopause is gonna get more attention. We are still not getting as many applications that as I'd like to see uh from startups solving and building products for women in menopause. Um, but I that market is massive. From like venture capital and entrepreneurship perspective, it's a field of opportunities to innovate. But also from like social impact, it's it's incredible. Um so I would I think I will continue to uh manifest um menopause uh space within FemTech to blow up and and for everyone to talk about it and for more investment and more entrepreneurship to go into in there. Um another aspect that I'd really I think it's happening and I and I hope will happen even more in the next year to come is scientific research. So a lot of the um a lot of the conditions in women's health still require more data and more scientific research, and that is happening. Um and I think we're what else I think we're gonna see is so in in women's health and in femtech, there's kind of two things. There's that you think you can kind of group the products and solutions into. There's health, so kind of basic health care that is necessary, and and applying technology to provide more options for women, more access for women, more solutions for women. Um, but there's also this kind of bit more futuristic aspect of women's health and femtech, maybe more around you know, female wellness, personalized wellness, longevity. And I find that space to be also really interesting because I it kind of encourages, I think, the rest of the sector to move faster. So I'll give you some examples. One topic I'm really interested in is ovarian longevity. So, in context of menopause and female longevity, um, ovarian longevity, if we were to Be able to solve or to delay menopause. We could potentially prolong not only for how for how uh long women can give birth, but women's quality of life. Menopause isn't just something that um has reproductive symptoms, it's something that has um effect on women's bone health, immune health, brain health, heart health. And it has an impact on um how well women experience later stages of their life. So if we were to be able to delay menopause, and there's some fascinating research and technologies that are happening in the space of ovarian longevity, we could potentially have incredible impact in um women being leaders in later stage in life, women um in general, how they show up in society at later stages in life and living longer and living better longer. So I I I'm paying very close attention to um ovarian longevity and cutting-edge innovation that that's happening there. And there's a few startups to watch, like Gameto, for example, have just raised 17 um 17 million in their latest round. Yeah, it's one of the interesting startups to look up and and watch. Um, another um quite interesting trend that's a little bit futuristic is psychedelics for women's health, um, for managing period pain um symptoms, for managing also psychological and sexual trauma, specifically for women. And there's some really interesting startups in the space that are looking at this as well. And um another trend I'm looking at is um vaginal microbiome. So we talk so much about gut microbiome and how important it is and and how it affects everything in health and what we can do to optimize, but we never talk about vaginal microbiome. And there's not still not enough research um dedicated to that space, and still not enough answers, and a lot of questions. And I think that when when we potentially get those questions answered, we can have a lot of interesting innovation and and ideas and entrepreneurships and products that could spark to in in response to that. So that's another area that I think is really, really interesting to watch. Um, so yeah, those are just some kind of more cutting-edge trends that I that I'm paying close attention to, as well as in general the sector moving forward um and just providing equitable care for women all over the world using technology.

Yeah, that's uh God, those are fascinating categories, something that, you know, until this morning I never even would have our conversation this morning I never would have really thought about. You know, and it's I think from a male perspective, we all have women in our lives that we love, right? I mean, majority, the overwhelming majority. And I think, you know, to hear this stuff for me is personally very exciting because, you know, not only does it improve the quality of the lives of, you know, 51% of the people that we know on this planet, um, but it also improves the lives of us men, like really. Like, who doesn't want, you know, a healthier mother, sister, cousin, aunt, right? Um, healthier and happier, you know, a partner, um, daughters, all these things, you know, a brighter future for them. So it's it's a really fascinating thing, and I'm I'm fully, fully on board with this. I think it's great. Uh, and it it is, I mean, you gotta like sit back sometimes and just be real and be like, yeah, I guess we have kind of failed women traditionally in healthcare because there isn't a lot of research. And I and this isn't my first time looking into femtech. Like if I've looked at, you know, with working with uh Natalia at the FitTech Club, you know, I've I've written some stuff on this segment and kind of done a little bit of cursory, you know, research on it. And it's it's true. There's just there isn't a lot of health data specifically on on women. And uh it's just one of those things. You can't cry about it, just move forward, right? Uh and it sounds like you guys are right in the middle of it doing doing the work. So it's it's it's great. Uh, you know, I know we're button up time and and you gotta head out to your uh your your weekend. So um Karina, if if uh if you don't mind, like give us a little insights, like if you want people to get a hold of you, if they want to get involved and with what you're doing, the femtep labs, where where would you like them to go online?

Yeah, I mean, so our website is uh femtechlab.com. And um it it kind of lays out in all different ways that people can get involved, um, become a mentor, become part of the investment network, uh, join us as an ecosystem partner. Everything is out there. My DMs are always open, especially on LinkedIn. Um, or you can yeah ping me a message or ping us a message via um FemTech Lab, and we'll definitely uh be happy to hear from anyone uh interested in the space.

Yeah, awesome. Well, Karina, thank you so much. This this has been really educational. It's a really exciting sector, and uh, you know, I I would love to get you back on uh next year around this time and just see see if all your predictions come true. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Karina Vazaroba. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Catbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because I put a lot of work into it and want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the feature of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Milesone, and this is the feature of fitness have a great day.